Charter Flight Series Tests Direct Gatwick–Campbeltown Route to Boost Golf Tourism at Machrihanish

Machrihanish Dunes resort, owned by Southworth, organised a Charter Flight Series trialling direct charter flights between London Gatwick and Campbeltown Airport on Scotland's Kintyre peninsula. The initiative aimed to demonstrate passenger demand and improve access to the area's links golf courses after Transport Scotland responded to a business case prepared by MKA Economics by stating there was "no evidence of unmet demand" for improved air links.

Transport Scotland's conclusion rested on an existing twice-daily Public Service Obligation flight from Glasgow to Campbeltown using a 16-seat aircraft operating at below 50% capacity during the golf season. Ian Ferguson, resort director at Machrihanish Dunes, noted that the PSO aircraft's weight restrictions frequently result in golfers and their bags being affected. Southworth underwrote the charter flight costs and covered 50% of a security solution at Campbeltown Airport — security having been removed approximately five years ago — with Highlands and Islands Enterprise contributing the remaining 50%.

Three Loganair charter flights were scheduled at the start, middle, and end of the golf season, and Ferguson said two further flights were completed successfully after an initial press trip. The charter flight from Gatwick to Campbeltown took approximately one hour, with the Ugadale Hotel and Cottages at Machrihanish located a ten-minute drive from the airport. The resort offers access to two links courses: the original Old Tom Morris-designed Machrihanish Championship links and the newer Machrihanish Dunes course designed by David McLay Kidd, and Southworth was granted planning permission in 2024 for a second course plus additional accommodation at the site.

Adjacent to the airport, inside the former airbase's Gaydon Hangar, sits the Campbeltown Bond, a whisky cask warehouse that can hold up to 40,000 casks on high-tech racking. The facility is described as still in its early stages, with plans to add a tasting room, shop, bottling plant, and accommodation.

This case illustrates a recurring dynamic in remote regional air access: a public subsidy scheme is judged against its own utilisation data, while a private operator argues that capacity, aircraft type, or seasonal timing suppress the demand that data captures. Southworth's decision to fund the charter series and split security costs with Highlands and Islands Enterprise shows a resort operator effectively self-financing a demand study that a government transport body declined to commission.

PSO routes are typically sized and subsidised around baseline connectivity needs rather than peak seasonal or tourism-driven demand, which is why a 16-seat aircraft running below half capacity on average can still coexist with unmet demand at specific times of year, such as golf season, when weight restrictions and baggage constraints bind. Charter trials like this one are a common tool for building the evidence base needed to justify route upgrades, additional PSO capacity, or new scheduled service.

What happens next will depend on whether Transport Scotland revisits its assessment in light of the completed charter flights, and whether Ferguson's stated longer-term goal of scheduled flights from Edinburgh to Campbeltown gains traction with either the airline or the funding bodies involved.